On some nights the sky is the best show in town. On this night, auroras ruled the sky, and the geomagnetic storm that created this colorful sky show originated from an increasingly active Sun. Surprisingly, since the approaching solar CME the day before had missed the Earth, it was not expected that this storm would […]
Clouds gather on Nepal’s sub-tropical side of the Himalayas with Mount Everest at the center of this photograph taken by an external high-definition camera on the International Space Station as it orbited 263 miles above the Indian subcontinent on April 13, 2023. via NASA https://ift.tt/MYkA7H2
Would you like to see a total eclipse of the Sun? If so, do any friends or relatives live near the path of next April’s eclipse? If yes again, then you might want to arrange a well-timed visit. Next April 8, the path of a total solar eclipse will cross North America from western Mexico […]
An American bald eagle swoops down to land on a pole at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on April 10, 2023. via NASA https://ift.tt/WDRUT0x
What’s that red ring in the sky? Lightning. The most commonly seen type of lightning involves flashes of bright white light between clouds. Over the past 50 years, though, other types of upper-atmospheric lightning have been confirmed, including red sprites and blue jets. Less well known and harder to photograph is a different type of […]
Are stars better appreciated for their art after they die? Actually, stars usually create their most artistic displays as they die. In the case of low-mass stars like our Sun and M2-9 pictured here, the stars transform themselves from normal stars to white dwarfs by casting off their outer gaseous envelopes. The expended gas frequently […]
A composite of images captured about a week apart from mid August 2022 through late March 2023, this series traces the retrograde motion of ruddy-colored Mars. Progressing from lower right to upper left Mars makes a Z-shaped path as it wanders past the Pleiades and Hyades star clusters, through the constellation Taurus in planet Earth’s […]
This image taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope shows JO204, a ‘jellyfish galaxy’ so named for the bright tendrils of gas that appear in this image as drifting lazily below JO204’s bright central bulk. The galaxy lies almost 600 million light-years away in the constellation Sextans. via NASA https://ift.tt/KGw6DHB
Sharp telescopic views of NGC 3628 show a puffy galactic disk divided by dark dust lanes. Of course, this portrait of the magnificent, edge-on spiral galaxy puts some astronomers in mind of its popular moniker, the Hamburger Galaxy. It also reveals a small galaxy nearby (below), likely a satellite of NGC 3628, and a very […]
Floodwater (dark blue) stands out against the vegetation in agricultural fields around Tulare Lake near Corcoran, California, in this enhanced color image taken by Landsat 8 on March 29, 2023. via NASA https://ift.tt/AE23feV